I have Hotmail and Pop3 email working on my T616 phone. It's kinda cool. Only problem is that it's pull not push but I can now check my mail on the go.7:33:41 PM []

I am moving into a completely empty apartment with absolutely nothing except some clothes and toys.

Most 'new hires' will go out and buy a foreign luxury car to celebrate completing school and joining the ranks of overpaid young tech workers. I'm going to stick with the Neon and instead properly outfit my apartment with a modern look. I want my furniture black, my tables steel and glass, my kitchen items brushed, and my accent items bright and cheery.

So this weekend John and I went shopping.

On Saturday we started at Sleep Country, because sleeping on hardwood floors is no fun, but got no attention from the salesperson and left. Next we headed to Western Ave where a large number of mid to high end interior designy furniture stores are located. My favorite store is Kasala where I will probably be buying the majority of my furniture.

Next we headed down to Ikea in Renton because John wanted a desk and shelves and I wanted to check out their furniture. I didn't find much in the way of what I want but John found what he was looking for.

We then headed up to the u-district to visit Magnolia A/V to look at home theatre systems. I don't think plasma and LCDs are worth the extra money so I'm looking at the Samsung rear projection DLP line of TVs.

Next we dropped off John's furniture at his new place and tried to find a BBQ. But in America BBQ refers to the act of BBQing and the tool you use to BBQ is called a grill so after clearing up that confusion we drove all over Seattle trying to find grills. We visited Target, Home Depot and Sears. John ended up buying a grill at Sears and there was a mixup and the one he took home is one sweet grill. It's stainless steel, has a sideburner,... Of course no gas stations on Capitol Hill sell propane so we then drove all over Seattle finding propane.

Saturday night we put the grill together, hung out at John's house warming party with a bunch of biology Phd students, drank beer and soaked in his backyard hot tub.

Sunday I spent many hours at Bon Macy's (a department store that is higher end than Sears but maybe a step below Nordstroms) and bought a bed and outfitted my kitchen. I'm looking at the ridiculously expensive but oh so gorgeous Calphalon One cookware with brushed stainless steel cooking toys. I still need to find some good plates (modern and white) and glasses (solid and cool).

My next mission was to outfit my bed and bathroom but apparently it is impossible to find modern contempary linens in Seattle. The Bon carries Calvin Klein which has some nice stuff but they didn't have much selection and no complete sets. So I ran all over town but did receive a recommendation that I have to go to Main Street Linens in Issaquah. So next weekend will be my linen weekend even if it requires a road trip.

Normally I hate shopping but now that I have the opportunity to shop for quality items it's a completely different story. I never imagined that I would ever care of be picky about my towels matching my bed linens but oddly, now I do.

Of course everything is ridiculously expensive and trying to pull together an entire apartment worth of stuff (couches, tables, chairs, kitchen, bed, bath,...) is prohibitively so.

While I have done a lot of window shopping my only purchase this weekend was a bed. I will have to commit to a certain amount of kitchen expenditures but my strategy is only to buy what I need. One pot, one pan, two plates, two bowls,.. First pay cheque a couch, second pay cheque a coffee table,...

Hopefully it doesn't take too long to pull this all together.7:20:04 PM []

Have you tried using the skip and replay buttons while in the guide? That should increase the rate at which you skip forward/back.

As for your other suggestions...

Yes, possibly easy improvements, but we have to weigh every new incremental improvement not just against all known bugs, other suggestions but also new features.

How would you prioritize hooking up VCRs to Media Center versus implementing new ATSC/HDTV functionality?* While we are 'Microsoft', we are still resource and time constrained and have to make hard tradeoffs and sometimes seemingly easy little things get cut.

I called and cancelled our $80/month digital cable subscription from Millennium Cable today.

When the customer service rep asked why, I said that all the channels I wanted were available via over the air HD broadcasters.

He at first didn't know what OTA was but I explained it and he followed up asking 'what if there were a special promotion, would you stay?' and I responded that it certainly was hard to compete with free.

And not just free, but free and works with my Media Center.

Of course, HBO isn't available via either OTA or through Millennium so we're out of luck there when Six Feet Under comes back on.

We'll likely turn to an alternative distribution mechanism to get the shows and I'll feel a bit guilty, but not so guilty since it doesn't matter how much I'd be willing to pay I still couldn't get them in HD short of moving into a new building.

Disclaimer: The posts on this weblog are provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confer no rights. The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in any way.